Lenni Lenape meant “original people” in the Algonquin language. All other Algonquin tribes traced their ancestry back to the Delaware area emanating on the Atlantic coast. Tamanend felt his role deeply as one of the first peoples. Even though he was still relatively young he felt like a grandfather to the other tribes that thirsted after war and conspired to monopolize trade with the French and Dutch. He sat in the long house alone letting the smoke of the tobacco encircle him. His thoughts moved and transformed as quickly as the rings that appeared and then dissolved into the air again. His people had been decimated by smallpox twice, conquered by the Susquehanna and finally he found himself under the oppression of the Iroquois nation, of which the Cherokee being all powerful. His meeting with the Mahicans had been a success and he brokered a deal between them and Rensselaer’s Fort Orange. They all agreed that the Mohawks were a threat and allied to protect the territory. Tamanend was born into a time of great change. He did not know what it was like to live without the presence of white men. The elysian fields of his ancestors were only a daydream to him now. As he gazed toward the past waxing nostalgic he wondered if it really was a better time. He tried with as much conviction as he could muster to create a positive environment for his people and the new emigrants that would keep coming. One of Tamanend’s braves entered quietly. He sat down next to the chief.
“Where is Unega?” Tamanend asked.
“She is on the palisades.” The brave replied. Tamanend gazed at the man for a moment. “The white men are coming.” He added. Tamanend stood and draped his deer skin about him. Then he walked silently out towards the cliffs. He could see Unega’s white hair in the fading twilight. She stood like a sentinel governing the tides that brought change. All the mothers and grandmothers hovered in expectation and, perhaps, trepidation as the English ship crept closer to land. The women parted like a school of fish as Tammany approached, his slender tall dark figure moved elegantly through the evening air. He stood beside the girl.
“The only survival is assimilation.” She whispered. “Fighting is fruitless.”
“Our ways and traditions come from the Great Spirit.” He replied.
“To pull someone up is to pull us all toward the Great Spirit.” She answered. “It is a part of samsara. Assimilation without compromise.” She was wise beyond years and he wrapped his arms about her. She comforted him so. The women buzzed like bees in a hive. His demonstrative affection seemed to imply he might take her as a wife. But his thoughts were that she would be well served to lead rather than to follow. She pulled a bright yellow saffron scarf from her dress and held it high. The wind caught it and it blazed in the last light like a flame. After a few moments a small light in the distance appeared from the ship. “If you are charitable then you will find release.” She said enigmatically.
“Release?” He asked unsure of what she meant.
“Release from all things you hold dear.” She replied.
“Do you want dessert?” Ashley asked with a coy smile. They barely spoke a word throughout dinner but seemed to take each other in as if communicating telepathically. It was an odd phenomenon that Ashley had not experienced fully before. She knew it existed but felt her sixth sense was underdeveloped.
“Noooo.” Chelsea purred and she smiled and seemed to gaze at the floor.
“What is it?” Ashley asked. Chelsea did not answer and she found it hard to keep her eyes focused on Ashley for any length of time.
“This is just so strange. But…I can hear you talking.” Ashley added. “In my head.”
“Really?” Chelsea said and she could not stop smiling. “What am I saying?”
“That’s just it. I can hear you and I can understand you but not in words. Something is lost in my translation of it. It’s just…a feeling. I guess. That’s the only way I can describe it. Like…like this entire restaurant and all the ambient noise and the traffic…disappears. All I can hear is you.” She explained and she stifled a giggle.
“What else?” Chelsea asked, her curiosity merging with fascination.
“Well…It happened that day when you came to interview me at the house.” Ashley began.
“The first day we met.” Chelsea said. And the way she said those words made the moment seem important and ripe with potential.
“Yeah. The first day we met.” Ashley echoed and she paused a moment to swim in the blissful silence. “I, uh…I remember being nervous and looking at the clock. But then when you arrived and we sat down I forgot about looking at the clock. I remembered what the time was and…and then when you left it seemed so soon. Like we had more to say to each other…But there wasn’t anything else to say because I didn’t really know you.” She explained.
“Like time stood still.” Chelsea said.
“Yeah. Like time stood still.” Ashley repeated and she gazed at Chelsea and her lithe frame, sandy hair and green eyes. Outwardly she didn’t look very much like Victoria at all. But something about her, the way she smiled. The way she moved—even her walk was identical to the winsome lady in the white house.
Chelsea looked just beyond Ashley and she thought perhaps someone she knew had entered the restaurant.
“Can we get the check, please?” Chelsea said and the waitress smiled and nodded.
“Oh, um. I guess you have to get back home.” Ashley said and she was preparing herself for their time to be over. She pulled out her wallet and as she opened it she saw Chelsea collect the check and put a credit card on the tray.
“Too late. Besides, I asked you to dinner.” She said and she grinned triumphantly as the waitress carried it away.
“Care to stroll to the village?” Chelsea asked and she leaned in close. “There’s something I want you to see.”
With a quick scrawl of the pen the two women were out the door and walking down Ninth Avenue through the meat market. It was a warm spring night and the breeze off the river made the evening feel positively Parisian. New Yorkers were out enjoying sidewalk cafes and lovers ambled arm in arm or holding hands.
“So what else did you find out?” Ashley asked. Chelsea slipped her arm through Ashley’s and they continued on cutting over on Thirteenth street to Eighth Avenue arm in arm. Ashley felt that same rocking motion as if on a boat, the soothing waves gently moving in rhythm to her heart. It was odd that they would fall into a familiarity so soon when they hardly knew each other but it was easy and natural and unbelievably sexy. They strolled down the quiet block lined with brownstones and small black box theatres.
“I can’t believe I’m going to tell you this.” She said smiling. “I saw him.”
“What? Who?” Ashley asked.
“Mr. Rhys.” Chelsea replied and the words shot like an electric jolt through Ashley’s body. The gentle to and fro grew into a weird tsunami.
“But he would be over a hundred years old.” Ashley said trying to reconcile it to herself.
“I know. But I saw him. Twice.” Chelsea admitted.
“Where?” Ashley said and they stopped for a moment.
“Once in the library and the second time in the pet store right over there.” Chelsea said.
Ashley was sure she was kidding. A pet store? No way. That’s just outright ridiculous, she thought.
“Really? What did he say? Did he give you lotto numbers?” She said giggling. Chelsea pulled her arm away and the motion of it took the air out of Ashley.
“I’m serious. I saw him. There’s a picture of him in the library and then he made himself appear to me. He said, ‘I told you I’d get well.’” Chelsea explained. Then she took a few steps to hide a certain vulnerability that took them both by surprise.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make light of it.” Ashley said and she wanted Chelsea to slip her arm back through hers but she did not. They walked on for a bit taking in the night’s activities. Chelsea seemed to walk in a kind of dreamlike reverie her feet barely touching the ground. It was in sharp contrast to the almost business like demeanor with which Chelsea seemed to approach everything. Ashley was very much aware that some sort of veil had parted and an innate extremely private assurance was in the process of forming.
“I believe you.” Ashley said earnestly and they turned down Grove Street. They stopped at the gate in the crook in the street and gazed up at the old apartment complex behind it. Ashley stood transfixed. A flood of feelings rushed through her that she could not explain. She was from the South. Things like fried green tomatoes and corn bread and wisteria vines made her cry. Kudzu and humidity and sweet tea made her sentimental. Gone with the Wind, To Kill a Mockingbird and A Streetcar Named Desire made her nostalgic. New York was her present home but the South would always be home.
“This is where they lived.” Chelsea said softly. Ashley gazed at her new friend questioningly.
“Richard and Victoria.” Chelsea added.
She had probably been down the street before and walked past this very house and not truly taken it in. It brought up the same feelings when she wandered into the great columned house in Brooklyn where Victoria worked and just then it dawned on her that Victoria had been an apparition and that she had experienced exactly what Chelsea had only she did not know it at the time. She imagined with great clarity the rooms in that old townhouse. The curtains, the wallpaper, the bedding---all the minute details and personal belongings bloomed as if being pulled from a trunk that had been stored away long ago.
Ashley’s eyes were moist and she felt like she could cry. Not from sadness rather from discovering something profound and passionate. She looked over at Chelsea who was lost in her own kind of reverie staring up at the old brick structure.
“I have an impulse.” Ashley said softly as the two women looked skyward side by side. Chelsea looked at her as if she already knew the answer.
“But I’m not sure it’s right.” Ashley murmured.
“Right for whom?” Chelsea said.
As daylight broke Richard could see from his sick bed that the snow had stopped. The sky had cleared and the great blue of infinity shined its light through the parlor windows. The fire was full and warm and the quilts kept the chill away. He was home. More than any other place in the world he was exactly where he was supposed to be living the life he was meant to live and loving the woman whom he adored beyond words. She was his muse in everything. Victoria was his touchstone, the point of departure and the absolute place of return. He would paint her again and again and write about her and listen to music with her in mind. He would learn photography and make images of her trying again and again to capture the mystery that lived just behind her eyes, He would lay down his life for her.
He inched over to see Michelangelo shuffling about in the kitchen and he thought perhaps Victoria had gotten up to find something for the poor creature to eat. She bobbed her head and her large dark eyes sparkled with the anticipation of being able to roam about someday and stretch her legs. Then he saw Victoria as she deftly maneuvered around the animal. She had wrapped the bison robe about her and seeing her adorned with the magical hide she was elegant and majestic and alluring. She moved silently into the room carrying a cloth and bowl of vinegar that she set down beside him.
“Are you too warm?” She asked. He shook his head ‘no’. He was mesmerized by her. She let the hide fall away and she was magnificent in her bareness, her belly protruding and catching the new daylight. She knelt down and slipped under the quilts beside him. Then she carefully and tenderly pulled the quilt away from him exposing his exceedingly pale skin. He was so white he almost looked gray. His face had color and so she was aware that he was on the mend. She gently bathed him in the vinegar to take away any leftover residue of sickness. She was lost in her reverie engaging in every nuance of his body as if making a holy offering to each area: his chest his neck his upper arms. Though the smell of vinegar was pungent it seemed to overtake the smell of sickness and stagnancy replacing it with a clean and disinfecting aroma.
“I was eight.” He whispered. Victoria was roused out of her daydream and looked at him questioningly. “The boat capsized.” He said. She stopped and propped her self up beside him, her creamy ivory skin a salve for his battered being. “He said we were going to Inishmaan…but we sailed by it and kept going.”
“You’re Irish?” Victoria asked. Richard nodded ‘yes’. “Catholic?” She added. Again he nodded ‘yes’. Not that any of the information had an effect on how she felt about him. She loved him with every fiber of her being. But the discovery of not knowing exactly who he was seemed a bit unsettling. “Long, long time ago.” He managed to say. “I was the only survivor.” He struggled, his voice growing hoarse with each word. “Malachy—“ he started and then stopped to rest. She let her hand gently glide over his chest.
“What about Malachy?” She ventured.
“He was the last to drown. Slipped from my arms.” He said and the tears welled up and as he tried to stifle his grief his throat hurt and he began to cough.
“Shhhhh. Shhhh.” She cooed softly and she collected the wet cloth and resumed her task. As she wiped away his tears she felt herself shedding her own. Then he gazed up at her and gently loosened a pin that held her hair back. It cascaded down about her shoulders. She let her hand rest on her belly.
“We’ll call him Malachy.” She agreed and she let the sound of that name move through her as if calling to the unborn soul from above. Ma-la-chy. It was no longer a word but a kind of chant that had a divine component. Every time the sound of the name would cross her ears her point of reference would be her child. It was fixed in the Akashic records and even if they decided on another name or the child wanted to be called something else he would always be Malachy to her.
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